


Calculating Inner Chi

by Dawnwind



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-16
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 11:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie and Amita are relaxing in yoga class when masked gunmen burst into the studio, taking the class hostage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calculating Inner Chi

The first time the yoga instructor told the class to empty their minds of all thought and just lie in savasana, Charlie was sure she was nuts. How was that possible? He had numbers scrolling through his mind every moment of the day or night, and even when his conscious mind shut down for sleep, his dreams were often full of equations dancing just out of reach, the solution to unsolved riddles tantalizing him.

"Acknowledge those random thoughts," Pritim, one of Amita's distant cousins, intoned. "And then let them drift past, freeing your mind. Let your brain rest. Relax your arms and legs on your sticky mat. Soft eyes, soft throat, deep breaths from the belly..." Her lilting voice wove an almost hypnotic thread through Charlie's mind.

He was surprised how much he liked the discipline of yoga since it was so completely different than anything he had ever done before. Instead of aggressively going after a goal or basket on the ball court, or precisely lining up a golf swing and still having the ball slice into the rough no matter how many arc analyses he did, yoga dealt with centering the mind and the body. A blending of the intellect and physical that he'd never tried before.

He'd always been flexible, able to fold his legs 'Indian Style' to sit in front of the TV far more easily than Don or his father, a genetic legacy by way of his limber mother. This was one of the reasons he'd agreed to accompany Amita to her cousin's class. The other reason was far more simple -- he wanted to spend time with Amita, and if it meant having to pretzel himself into some complicated pose to be next to her while she was wearing the loose but revealing yoga wear; not really a problem.

Today's gathering was small, probably due to the inclement weather. Rain pattered steadily on the windows of the studio. With only five students, Pritim had spent much of the hour of class time helping her students with some of the more difficult poses until they were all worn out.

Charlie found that lying flat on a rubber sticky mat, with his body stretched but totally at ease was amazingly calming and refreshing. He was sure he'd done the Dog pose ten times in a row and, as he lay quietly, the slight burn in his arm muscles reminded him that it was his least favorite.

Even with Pritim's prompts to rid themselves of extraneous ideas and concentrate on the feeling of their reclined bodies, Charlie had never quite been able to empty his brain. It was too full. Little partially formed sequences kept intruding on his half meditation and he'd grow interested in whether he'd gotten the co-efficient correct in his most recent hypothesis or if a Farey sequence had any relevance in the case Don was working on.

"Remember to breathe -- one deep breath in and a smaller, softer breath after. Open up your ribcage, let your heart be soft." Pritim switched on a CD of melodious chimes and sitar music to aid in their relaxation. "If you keep having those intrusive thoughts, let your self concentrate on your breathing. Inhale and exhale..."

Pritim's voice intruded just as he was getting enmeshed in the problem and he put the thought aside for a later time, feeling slightly guilty for letting his brain run away with him and foolish for being unable to completely blank out his mind.

He tried settling, wiggling his upward facing palms just a little and adjusting his shoulder blades against the soft mat. He could just hear Amita's soft intakes of breath and her long exhalations over the chimes. The woman on the other side of him, Marianna, sighed and fidgeted. Even with his eyes closed, Charlie knew that she was reaching back to unclasp the barrette that held her long thick dark hair. Then she'd wobble her head from side to side to get comfortable. She did it every single week.

The sitar music twanged, atonal but somehow melodious with the chimes. Charlie surrendered his consciousness again, pushing aside some enticing polynomial equations that flitted past his brainpan and inhaled.

The door to the studio opened, a quiet step and then another. Probably just a student early for the next class that started in ten minutes.

Charlie felt his belly rise and fall with his breathing, and his belly rumbled, demanding food. He grinned, losing all ability to think of nothing. A nice big ciabatta sandwich with provolone, Italian sliced meats and lots of tomatoes loomed big in his mind's eye. With a glass of spicy chai iced tea. He hadn't had any breakfast, and the lunch hour was a long way off.

The tone of the chimes trembled, blending with the sitar. Someone in the room stirred, clothing whispering against their sticky mat. A soft clatter, as if the shades were being drawn down the front window, broke the rhythm of Charlie's breathing. He inhaled more deeply, wetting his tongue in anticipation of the iced tea. Hurried steps slapped on the hardwood floor and there was a hushed phrase spoken too low to be heard clearly over the music.

The next sound was so completely foreign, so out of place for the gentle, restorative yoga studio that Charlie had to grope for where he had heard the loud blast before.

A pistol shot.

Then came a scream.

Jerking upright on his elbows, Charlie saw three men wearing the traditional garb of criminals; balaclavas and black clothing. All three held guns on the assembled students. The man in the middle had grabbed Marianna and was pulling her toward him. She resisted, screaming again, her long, unbound hair hiding her face.

"Nooo! I'm not..." Marianna wailed.

"What-what is the meaning of this?" Pritim cried, getting to her feet in one swift, graceful movement. She was pale but determined, a mother tiger defending her family. "You cannot come in here!"

"None of your business," Gunman Number Two growled and pulled off another shot over her head that shattered the figure of a reclining Buddha in its niche.

"I demand that you leave!" Pritam flinched, her voice wobbly with shock. "This is a peaceful class!"

When Number Two squeezed the trigger in rapid succession, Pritim and all five students ducked, the bullets peppering the walls of the studio with miniature holes. Dust clogged the air, filtering down in the sudden stillness like snowfall. Outside, the rain smacked hard against the windows as if feebly imitating the bullets' force.

Three years of working with the FBI had honed Charlie's observational skills or at least they were a good sight better than they'd once been. Fear thrumming through his veins, he examined the three men, estimating their relative locations to possible escape routes, and tried to figure his chances of going up against any one of them. From his kneeling position, they all looked tall and formidable, but there were subtle differences, if he eliminated the obvious similarity of their clothing. With their faces covered and not enough hair or skin showing to make descriptions easy, he'd have to rely on other characteristics. Number One, who had yanked a protesting Marianna to her feet, had thick wrists and a huge, meaty hand on Marianna's arm. She was five-seven, almost exactly Charlie's height, which put Number One at a six feet, give or take an inch.

Number Two was broad-shouldered and a mouth-breather. Charlie could hear his wheezy, harsh breathing over the nervous squeaks of the other yoga students. He had the biggest gun, and extra bullets. He slid a new clip into the automatic in an almost reflexive manner. Apparently very accustomed to guns.

Number Three was bow-legged and shorter than his partners, his wide belly stretching the limits of his black turtleneck. "Get against the wall," he sneered, pushing at the oldest student.

"What do you want?" Martin quavered. At 80, it was remarkable that he came to yoga at all; his voice always quavered.

Pritim shuddered, doing as Number Three ordered, her whole body slumped in a decidedly un-yoga-like pose. She placed her hands on the wall, near to the knotted ropes used for hanging poses. Charlie watched her go, automatically calculating the odds of any of them surviving if they protested. Five students and one teacher versus three large men with guns. There were only half as many kidnappers but their guns evened the odds considerably.

The rope wall was the furthest from the front door. If there was a back door to the studio, Charlie didn't know about it, but California fire laws said that there must be. Probably on the opposite side of the room, down the tiny hallway leading to Pritim's office. There were numerous pillows, bolsters and rolled mats in bins to the right of the rope wall, but nothing that could be used as a weapon of defense.

"All of you, over to the wall, face away from the door," Number Three ordered, kicking Martin's leg to get him moving. The old man nearly toppled over from the blow, but managed to get to his feet.

"Leave him alone!" Charlie was surprised as anyone to hear himself shout. His heart was pounding against his ribs, practically vibrating his whole chest. "We'll do what you want." He glanced sideways at Amita, sending her silent support. Her black eyes were wide, contrasting sharply with her pale face but Amita was a fighter and she wasn't freaking out. That gave Charlie the strength to come off his knees, holding out a hand to her. If they went over to the rope wall, they'd be nearer to the little pile of discarded clothing and shoes. In the pocket of his blue hoodie was his cell phone. One push of a button would connect him to Don and the FBI.

Amita uncurled her legs and took Charlie's outstretched hand, her eyes flicking left to the clothing. She mouthed one word, "Cell?" Behind them, Marianna was weeping as if she'd given up all hope, her voice undulating at cross-purposes to the sitar music.

"Lookit the big man." Number Two stepped across Sunshine, the fifth student, who had curled in a fetal position at the first gunshot and never moved since. "Helping the pretty girl. Get your hands off her." He shoved an elbow into their clasped hands, sending Charlie violently backwards.

Charlie could feel Amita's nails scratching across his palm as their connection was severed, and he flailed, trying to regain his balance, but his foot caught on the edge of the sticky mat. He hit the hardwood floor with a grunt, the air whooshing out of his lungs. He lay stunned, chest locked in the painful in-between of breathing in and breathing out, and achieving neither.

Amita flinched, yelping, "Charlie!" She scrambled toward him on her knees, but Number Two stepped in front of her, barring the way.

"I said over to the wall, pretty girl." He shoved the gun into her face. Amita scooted back on her heels, scuttling in the desired direction.

"Let's get out of here!" Number One snarled, drawing Marianna toward the front door. "This is taking too long."

"Boss!" Number Three said urgently.

Learning to breathe all over again, Charlie finally sucked in a thimbleful of air, his suffocating brain cells celebrating the small victory. Pritim's mantra, focus on your breath, came back to him and he relaxed his diaphragm, letting the cacophony in the yoga studio recede long enough to center himself. Fragments of P vs NP flickered in the forefront of his brain, trying to divert him, but he concentrated on letting precious oxygen refill his body. Breathe in, breath out.

"Musta heard the shots..." Number Three was talking rapidly, but Charlie couldn't quite hear him over Marianna's pitiful whimpers and the clanging cymbals on the Indian music CD. He caught the kidnapper's next words, though. "Police!"

"Turn that damned music off!" Number One demanded.

In the startling silence, Charlie heard the far off squeal of a patrol car. The cavalry was on its way.

That didn't ameliorate the fact that six people were being held hostage by three gunmen. In fact, it only exacerbated matters. Number One and his cohorts were not going to let their hostages go without a fight. The kidnappers had probably intended to blast in, grab their victim and jam out in very short order. They'd picked the quietest period of the yoga class, when all participants had been reclined with their eyes closed and unable to witness the kidnappers' entrance. Which proved they'd planned out their moves in advance, probably having observed the class on previous occasions.

But why?

Charlie sat up very slowly, taking in a deep, steadying breath, very grateful for the elasticity of his muscles. He ached from hitting the solid floor, but nothing was broken.

Pritim, Martin and Amita were sitting with their backs to him, facing the rope wall. Amita was nearest to the clothing, the familiar blue of his hoodie bunched up under her left leg, and he gave fervent hopes that she'd remembered which number on his speed dial connected with Don.

Sunshine lay unmoving on her blue sticky mat, her hands splayed across her face, her eyes glassy. She wasn't going to be any help. Neither was Marianna who was still crying as if she'd lost everything in life. What did the kidnappers want with her?

Charlie didn't know any of the yoga students beyond a friendly nod in the morning before the opening namaste and invocation, but all were enrolled at Cal Sci with the exception of Martin. The old man was professor emeritus in the philosophy department. Marianna didn't take any math classes, as far as Charlie knew, but he thought he'd seen her once or twice in the cafeteria. A pretty woman, with long curly dark hair similar to Amita's. During yoga class, she kept to herself, worked diligently on her poses and left carrying a green backpack. There was nothing spectacular or noteworthy about her. So why had the gunmen grabbed her specifically?

All three gunmen were grouped at the front of the room, arguing over the arrival of the police. With the front shades drawn, it was impossible to see out to the street, but Charlie knew the topography of Cal Sci well enough to imagine the scene.

The tiny building of the studio sat directly across from Cal Sci's main parking area, sharing the lot with the campus bookstore which didn't open until 9:30. This far from the main campus, there was rarely anyone around in the early morning except other students waiting for the second yoga class.

One of them must have sounded an alarm, alerting the police to the hostage crisis.

"You, teacher lady!" Number One crossed the studio with long strides, his solid, military-style boots heavy on the floor. Charlie could feel the wood give each time the man took a step.

He would never know where the impetus came from, but it was a-now-or-never moment, using his fear as a springboard Number One was equidistant between his comrades and the three people at the rope wall, as unprotected as a guy could be who was holding a pistol bigger than the one Don kept snugged in the holster at the small of his back.

Charlie went up fast, from Cobbler's pose to Mountain pose in one seamless move, jamming his stiffened fingers into Number One's eyes, his elbows going out like a gawky crane's wings to catch the barrel of the pistol and knock it out of Number One's hand.

"Hell!" Number One shouted as Charlie's momentum barreled them over, the gun skittering across the floor into a pile of bolsters.

Charlie heard the first shot whine over his head and tried to roll away, but Number One had one meaty hand clenched in Charlie's Math Department Poker Tourney T-shirt. Charlie twisted, groping on the larger man's shoulders and used his knees to push him up and away, the fabric of his shirt pressing tightly against the back of his neck when Number One refused to let go. Two more bullets snicked on either side of the rolling combatants. Charlie's mind had gone blank: there was nothing but the present, nothing but survival spurring him on. He barely registered the bullet that zinged past his ear. In the distance, he could hear screams, voices and the high, flat whine of a siren.

"You little shi..." Number One sneered, his eyes hard and glittering in the slits of the balaclava. He swung his arm, slamming Charlie into the wall with mind-numbing force and suddenly froze with a little gasp, the light dimming in his eyes. His fist going slack on Charlie's T-shirt, Number One simply folded to the floor, shot in the back by Number Two.

Barely conscious, Charlie slid down to the baseboard in a heap.

"Stop or I'll shoot!" Martin's voice still quavered, but there was a toughness that went along with the gun he held. He was sitting on the pile of bolsters, training the weapon on the remaining kidnappers. "Haven't shot one of these since WW2, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten how!"

"You killed Joe!" Number Three accused his remaining partner.

"I was aiming at Curly." Number Two pulled off a couple of extra shots for good measure.

Charlie heard everything as if he was wearing ear plugs. Big, thick earplugs that filled his whole head up with cotton batting. He should get up, make sure Amita was all right, but he wasn't quite ready to be horizontal yet. Pritim always did say that the standing poses were the hardest. He'd just try a new one right now, slumped against a wall.

As if the last volley of bullets had released her from some kind of stasis, Marianna screamed, scuttling away from the body that had fallen at her feet. "Get him away from me. I..."

"Marianna!" Pritim said sharply, from just behind Martin and the safety of his firearm. "Who are these men?"

"Get back to your places!" Number Two shouted, pulling the trigger again. His pistol jammed, the firing mechanism freezing uselessly.

Marianna shrieked, her face tight with fear, but there was a horrified realization in her eyes as she stared at the body. "Joe? Is that Joe Recuzzo?" She tore at his balaclava but it caught up under his chin and she wasn't quite able to take it off the dead man. "Oh, please God, I didn't want this..."

"Charlie?" Amita asked quietly, pressing against his wrist. He very much liked her fingers there. She felt cool and safe -- two things he wanted to feel just then.

Charlie raised his head cautiously, the zingy after-affects of adrenaline making him tremble. He was numb and disoriented, his brain remarkably empty of the usual swirling numerals and polynomials. He didn't like the feeling at all.

"Charlie?" Amita gazed at him, her skin so pale she appeared close to passing out herself. It occurred to him that he should reassure her, maybe give some comfort, but he was fresh out. "You're..."

"This is the police!" an amplified voice came from outside. "Open the door and throw down your weapons."

"I'd do as they say." Martin held the pistol up a little higher. "They sound reasonable, but resisting arrest is never a sound philosophy unless it's civil unrest. Which is a whole separate ball of wax entirely."

"What?" Number Three said, swinging around to peer out around the edge of the window shade.

"This is the police!" roared the voice again. "Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands behind your heads!"

"Did you call Don?" Charlie asked Amita, under cover of the steady drum of rain on the roof and the whoop of sirens from the street.

"I hit speed dial." Amita reached out. As her fingers threaded through his hair, Charlie gasped, pain registering with sudden agony. "Charlie, you were shot!"

"Don't touch that!" Charlie yelped. Pain so fierce it brought tears to his eyes burned along the top of his skull. One of the bullets must have grazed his head, and he'd never felt it. How was that possible?

"This is fucking ridiculous! Give me that thing." Number Two grabbed Three's gun, about ready to shoot it out with the cops. "No way am I going down for murder one on that idiot."

"Holding a roomful of hostages is a Federal offense, young man," Martin advised. "Which would get you life. Especially having killed one. I suggest you give yourselves up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm making popcorn." Megan unfolded the flattened package of unpopped corn and placed it in the microwave in the FBI's breakroom cum kitchen.

"For breakfast?" Don stirred his coffee and sucked on the end of the red plastic stirrer.

"Last time I ate was take out Chinese with Colby and David just before the raid on McKenzie's place." Megan rubbed her eyes. "And that was over 12 hours ago. Do you want some?"

Don had the urge to copy her gesture. His eyes burned from lack of sleep and the aftereffects of the teargas they'd thrown into McKenzie's warehouse to smoke out the criminals. Drinking coffee on an empty stomach would be like pouring acid on an open wound. He should eat. Anything to stay awake until after the debriefing. "Any butter on it?"

"This is the low fat kind." Megan leaned back against the counter, giving her boss the once over. "You don't need extra fat anymore than I do. Just because you have the kind of tight-bodied physique that Chippendale strippers would die for doesn't mean you can indulge. Think about your capillaries."

"Tight-bodied physique, huh?" Don grinned, half-embarrassed and half-amused. The banter helped push out the nastiness that pressed against his brain. He didn't want to think about the casualties from the raid just yet. "Didn't know you were looking, Reeves."

"Stuff it up your ass, Eppes," Megan said without rancor just as Don's cell phone trilled.

"Into the kinky stuff, huh?" He flipped open his cell to read the screen. Charlie's name identified the caller, but when Don put the phone to his ear, he didn't hear his brother's familiar voice. There was a muffled grunt and some scuffling with some kind of weird background music like an off-key guitar and some cymbals. "Charlie?" Don asked in confusion. "Do we have a bad connection?"

"Turn that damned music off!" a guttural voice shouted, sounding like the speaker was fairly far from Charlie's phone.

Don stared at the tiny receiver, adrenaline suddenly pumping through his veins, banishing the fatigue. That was not Charlie. The internal monitor that alerted him when he was walking into a potentially dangerous scene as an FBI agent was back on full alert. Something was wrong.

"What's the matter?" Megan asked, obviously keying into his tension.

"Quiet," Don hushed, straining to listen to the background noise on the phone but the soft explosions from the corn bursting into popcorn in the microwave were almost louder than what was happening on the other end of the line. He yanked open the door to the microwave, silencing the popcorn.

"Charlie?" he asked again. There was an almost deafening silence and Don feared that he'd been cut off. He turned the volume on the phone up to full power, holding it out so that Megan could listen, too.

"Someone's crying," she whispered. "Not Charlie."

"A woman," Don said. The atonal music was gone, replaced by the distant voices of two, possibly three men. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but whatever it was, they were angry. They spoke sharply, with the intense inflections that conveyed anxiety and discord. The voices of criminals, or at least men who were involved in something that brought with it a high degree of conflict and possibly violence. "We need to get this traced," Don mouthed to Megan, just as she started out the door with a terse nod.

"Don."

He might not have heard the barely spoken word, except that it was his own name. "Yes?" he answered into the phone, feeling his whole body slow down into battle mode. Belatedly, he recognized the voice. "Amita?"

"Three gunmen," Amita whispered, the fear in her voice palpable across the miles. "The yoga studio at Cal Sci."

"Hell!" A far louder, far more masculine voice shouted just as a gunshot boomed.

Don was running through the office cubicles for the elevator even before he realized he was moving. The phone was hot in his hand, his only link to whatever hell Amita and Charlie were caught up in, and he needed to get to the scene ASAP.

"They're at Cal Sci!" Don called over his shoulder to his team.

"Oh, my God!" Amita squeaked through the receiver. "Charlie!"

The tiny phone seemed to vibrate from two more gunshots. Possibly a Sig Sauer, Don's analytical side identified as he was smacking the elevator call button.

It was far too easy to create the scene in his mind; three gunmen, hostages, and his brother in the middle of it, possibly bleeding from a bullet. But how? And why?

David and Megan appeared as the elevator doors slid open, their faces grim. "Colby's coordinating with LAPD," David said, sotto voce, and all three of them heard an elderly man's voice announce that he was holding a gun.

"You killed Joe!" a different male voice than the first one Don had heard yelled just before a volley of shots blasted forth, severing the connection.

"Amita said there were three gunmen at the yoga studio at Cal Sci." Don watched the floor indicator light up the numbers in reverse order, willing the cranky elevator to go faster than usual. He went cold inside, burying the fear underneath his training. This was his job.

"And one of them is Joe," Megan added unnecessarily. "I didn't even know there was a yoga studio on campus."

"Or that Charlie went." David raised an eyebrow with a tight smile that was probably supposed to lighten the air, but Don didn't take the bait.

"I think he's been going with Amita," he explained. "The instructor is her... cousin, if I remember correctly." He bounded from the elevator the second the doors parted, the other two trailing behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pain travels through the body at about 350 feet per second. Charlie leaned forward until his forehead was touching his knees, working on staying conscious. Interesting that the pain must have taken some circuitous route to get from the source to his brain's command center, since he hadn't actually felt the bullet wound until Amita touched his head. And just how could pain move 350 feet in a second when he was only 67 inches tall? A conundrum he'd have to delve into further when he could manage two semi-intelligent thoughts in a row without feeling like he'd throw up.

Damned, it hurt to get shot. Like nothing he'd ever experienced before. And to think that Don had brushed off a graze on his arm as if it were nothing.

Amita gulped, staring at the blood on her fingers. Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, riding out the throbbing in his skull, barely aware of anything around him. He did not want to see the color of his own blood smeared across Amita's hand. That was just wrong. Weird how he could center in on trivial facts like the speed of pain when he couldn't dredge up the solution to the simplest calculus equation.

As if calculus would be any help at all in a room full of frightened yoga practitioners, a dead body and two murderous gunmen.

He licked his dry lips, concentrating on his breathing again. To his left, Martin still covered the two gunmen, one of whom was laughing in an eerie, detached way that sent shivers up Charlie's spine. Neither one of the kidnappers seemed in the slightest bit concerned that the old man held a gun. Charlie thought he should put his lot in with Martin, if just to even up the sides, but he hadn't quite figured out how to sit up all the way yet.

"SWAT team's setting up camp right in front." Number Three turned to watch his partner pointing a pistol at the gathering law enforcement. "This ain't what Joe said would..."

"Would you just shut the hell up?" Number Two said savagely, tapping the gun barrel against the window glass so that the chilling sound drowned out the drone of the rain.

Marianna moaned. "How could he do this to me? I tried to get..."

"Marianna, not now!" Pritim hushed, beckoning her over to the rope wall. Marianna took one last look at the bloody corpse sprawled over a green and yellow striped sticky mat and scuttled over to her teacher's side.

Amita tugged Marianna down to the floor beside her, all the while keeping one hand on Charlie's head, using his blue hoodie to apply pressure to the bleeding wound. Charlie didn't remember when she'd pressed the sweatshirt into his hair, but it was highly distracting. He batted the makeshift bandage away and pushed himself up until his back was against the solid wall.

The room seemed unsteady, the walls moving in and out very slowly. He blinked, focusing on the gunmen to filter out that unnerving vision. He let the math take over, seeing the opposing groups on each side of the studio as a tantalizing geometry equation, two fragments of a mathematical sentence separated by an unsolved portion that begged him to unravel its mysteries. With the exception of the prostrate Sunshine, all the hostages were now at the rope wall, and both gunmen stood near the front window.

There had to be some way to exploit that distance. The ratio had improved vastly now that Number one was out of the picture: five to two, and one gun for each group. Charlie wasn't at all sure if the jammed pistol that Number Two had tossed away was completely useless, but he liked probable outcomes a whole lot more this way.

If only his head didn't hurt so damned badly. Charlie rubbed his fingers together, craving a marker and a smooth, clean surface to write on. Hostage crises were Don's forte. Charlie was supposed to be safe behind the scenes, writing up algorithms and analyzing data, not bleeding from a gunshot wound.

"Pritim," Martin spoke up, pointing his gun in the direction of the kidnappers. "I think now would be a good time to call..."

"You in there!" The sheer volume of the amplified police voice from the street sent shock waves through Charlie's brain and galvanized the two kidnappers. "Send out the hostages!"

"I said, shut the hell up!" Number Two spun with astonishing speed and shot the gun right out of Martin's gnarled fist. The old man stumbled back in shock, crying out as the gun practically exploded from his grasp.

"Didn't you hear that we are in charge of this situation?" Number Two shouted. "This was going to be simple. Grab the broad and get out without a hitch." He advanced across the polished wooden floor, stepping over the body of his former comrade without a qualm. "It's all changed now. You five stay quiet." He fired again, the bullet thudding into the wall just above Martin's bowed head. The sharp scent of cordite hung in the air. "Or I start getting rid of excess baggage."

"Joe Recuzzo never went anywhere without Vinnie and Stew," Marianna said in a high-pitched voice, her words tumbling out so fast that they slurred together. "And not one of you moved unless my ex told you to." She gulped, on the edge of sobs. "What did he tell you to do, Vinnie?"

"Now that is unfortunate, Marianna." Number Two clicked his tongue, his tone silky-smooth with a razor sharp edge. "We hadn't planned on you recognizing us until we were halfway across town."

"I'm not as stupid as you think I am," she whispered, tendrils of dark hair stuck to her face with tears. She shoved the thick mass of hair back impatiently.

"Care to fill the rest of the class in on the current assignment?" Charlie asked recklessly, using his headache as a motivator. He'd already been shot, how much worse could things get?

Amita made a tiny noise of protest, but didn't stop him.

"Well, Curly, trying to be the big man again. You want another bullet?" Number Two held the gun level with Charlie's forehead, baring his teeth. "I'd be happy to provide..."

Looking down the black void of the gun barrel, Charlie's belly flip-flopped and he only managed to hold onto the contents by imaging what would happen if he puked all over his captor. Not good at all.

"N-nobody has to die here," Charlie declared but his resolution was wavering with the threat of a bullet through the brain. What the hell would Don do if he were here?

"Please," Pritim whispered. "We can work this out..."

"Convince me," Number Two turned the barrel sideways, poking the cold steel against Charlie's nose before backing off.

 _Charles, do not do anything rash._

Charlie hitched in a frightened breath, almost laughing. Apparently his conscience sounded just like Larry Fleinhardt. Why hadn't he ever noticed that before?

He wrapped his fist around the ropes hanging from a row of rings embedded in the wall and climbed unsteadily to his feet. The room canted at a sickening forty-five degree angle and he was very glad of the rope to keep him upright. "I'm with the FBI," he announced. Apparently his brains were leaking right out of the groove in his scalp, because he must be certifiably crazy to boast about his connections.

"Professor," Martin quavered. "Perhaps a..."

"Grandpa, let the pro-fessor speak," Vinnie said, his dark eyes glinting. "I'm real interested in what he has to say."

Charlie lifted his chin, biting down on his bottom lip to keep from avoid showing any weakness in front of the bullies. He knew Number Two's first name, and could give a partial description, if asked. Six foot two, if he was an inch, with the noisy breathing of a asthma sufferer, and the coldest brown eyes Charlie had ever had the misfortune to look into. All that would help Don, wouldn't it? Help identify the criminals.

What would help Don more would be to get the rest of the hostages out -- to safety -- especially Amita. Reduce the amount of people who could be hurt. Contain the situation. Or, in other words, refine the equation until the clean, logical numbers spoke to him.

None of this was logical. That much he had to contend with.

"You want to get out of here, right?" Charlie said carefully between the throbbing pulses of his heartbeat and headache. "Call 'em up." He gestured at the window where the bright red, blue and yellow lights from cop cars strobed through the closed blinds. "Give your demands, whatever the hell you want to get out with the least amount of bloodshed. Tell 'em that I have high level government clearance, and I'll go with you."

"I don't take orders," Vinnie snarled, coming up so close that Charlie was pressed against the wall. The curved metal bracket securing one of the ropes dug into his spine.

"Listen to him!" Marianna cried, grabbing at the kidnapper's arm but he shook her off. "Vinnie, please! Chet wants me back? It's been a whole year, why now? "

"Marianna," Stew hissed. "Chet don't like when people leave."

"So you got yourselves a stalemate?" Charlie looked up at Number Two, his throat so tight he could barely speak. This was in no way logical, and he was damned sure that Don would be furious. But on the other hand, it was the only thing he could think of that altered the variables. Whether or not the sequence had any plausibility wasn't currently obvious. He was used to having much more time to play with the numbers. "Your solution didn't work, so you change the outcome. X no longer equals Y, so find a different integer. Let the women and Professor Papadopoulos go. Just take me and get us out of here."

"You don't look like an agent," Stew laughed again, the creepy giggle of a hyena about ready to attack.

"He's not a field agent," Amita said, lacing her fingers in her lap. She didn't look up at him, and Charlie could feel her fear as if it was his own. Maybe it was.

"So just what do you do, Pro-fessor?" Vinnie looked Charlie up and down as if he were a bizarre specimen under a microscope. "You sound like some kinda math teacher."

"Yes, exactly!" Charlie patted the air in front of him, not going so far as to touch Number Two. "The bureau utilizes my expertise in code-breaking, analyzing patterns in crime clusters." What would hook these assholes? "Algorithms, money laundering..."

That got him. Number Two's expression, as much of it that could be seen through his balaclava, was shrewd. "You know Rico stuff? Classified information on who the Feds are going after?"

"Sure," Charlie agreed readily, anything to get on their good side. "Use my cell and call my partner, he'll verify who I am. Just agree to let the others go and I'll... go with you."

 _That was sure to piss Don off, but what other choice did he have?_

"Chet wanted Marianna," Stew reminded his colleague.

"We'll bring her, too. Still," Vinnie drawled, tapping the gun against Charlie's Poker Tourney T-shirt. "The Professor has a point. We need a... what would you call yourself, Curly?" He nudged the pistol into the pile of red and blue chips printed on the shirt. "A bargaining chip?"

Charlie held still, very aware of the round metal barrel hard against his lowest ribs. If Number Two pulled the trigger now, the bullet would tear a hole right through him, obliterating his heart and lungs. The pounding in his head intensified, but he ignored it, just as he'd ignored that little Larry voice.

 _Stay calm._

"So, saying I do call this partner of yours?" Vinnie began. "Why would he care about you?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain slicked streets reflected the lights on the top of each patrol car, creating a weirdly festive atmosphere to the cordoned off area. Bands of red, yellow and blue striped the pavement with primary colors meant for a child's room, not a hostage stand-off. The narrow street was surrounded by emergency vehicles of every sort, with the media already setting up camp just past a wall of sawhorses and orange tape. Don shoved his badge in the face of every local law enforcement yahoo who tried to bar him from entering, and managed to pull his SUV into the cordoned off parking lot just opposite the yoga studio after growling "Special Agent Eppes," far too many times.

There was always friction between LAPD and FBI with regards to jurisdiction and control of a crime scene, but in this case, Don was ready to climb over any obstacle in his path to find out what was happening to Charlie.

He'd just identified himself and his team to the police commander in charge when his cell phone rang. Once again his brother's name lit up on the little screen.

Megan frowned, staring at the yoga studio as if hoping she had x-ray vision to see past the covered windows. David slipped off to coordinate with the police, his shoulders hunched against the rain.

"Charlie?" Don answered abruptly, holding up his hand to Commander Hong to forestall any questions.

"Let's just say I'm his representative," a gruff voice said.

Amita had said there were three gunmen -- which one was this?

"I want to talk to Charlie Eppes," Don demanded. His father would never forgive him if Charlie got hurt through some fault of his own. And no matter how Charlie had gotten involved, it would always be Don's fault in Alan's eyes. The insistent nagging in the back of his brain said he should have called Alan before they arrived at the crime scene, but then again, he hadn't had any hard facts yet. Better to give his father the truth than a collection of rumors.

"The professor is otherwise occupied," the voice laughed. "Am I talking to Don Eppes, FBI?"

Don looked over at the innocuous building, trying to visualize the scene inside. How many hostages, how many kidnappers? "You are. Give me something so I can trust you. How about your name?"

"No names. Our original mission went fubar," the man continued. "So the little professor came up with an alternate plan that I actually like a whole lot better."

Chuck, what the hell did you do?

"How many people do you have in there with you?" Don asked, going cold and calm inside. This was his purview, he was used to negotiating with criminals. That Charlie was involved had to be pushed aside; he couldn't let his family involvement sway his judgment, no matter how worried he was. An even better reason for not calling Alan just yet.

"Agent." Commander Hong handed him a piece of paper. There were three names there, Pritim Ramanujan, Marianna Carson and Sunshine Beckworth. "Friends waiting for them said they were in there."

Don nodded his thanks, recognizing the name of Amita's cousin. There were at least five people inside, then, counting Amita and Charlie. He wasn't about to speculate on whether they were all alive.

"We're willing to be generous in exchange for a little mutual cooperation." The kidnapper had an irritatingly smug satisfaction. "Get me a car and I'll let some of these people go."

"We know you have at least five hostages," Don said flatly. "Let them all out and then we'll talk about charges."

"You don't hold any of the aces, Fed, I do," he replied. "And you don't know as much as you think you do."

More hostages, then. Don unwrapped a piece of gum one-handed, stuffing it into his mouth. Chewing bled off the pressure, kept him focused. "Six hostages," he amended. It was a guess, but apparently a good one, because he could hear the hiss of anger over the phone line.

"You must know that the FBI do not negotiate with kidnappers. Let all the hostages out. You haven't got a prayer with the place surrounded with cops. SWAT snipers could take you and your associates out at 100 yards." He chewed steadily, waiting for an answer, but none came. "Take the olive branch, and things will go a lot easier for you, believe me. Kidnapping is a Federal offense."

Listening hard, Don thought he heard the sound of his brother's voice, rough and low, but he couldn't make out Charlie's words. Just the knowledge that Charlie could speak loosened the band around his chest. He caught Megan's eyes, nodding minutely to tell her Charlie was alive.

"The professor wants to talk to you," the man snapped.

"Don," Charlie said, about an octave above his everyday speaking voice, making him sound like the 13 year old who'd graduated high school the same day Don had.

"Charlie, are you hurt?" The memory of Amita's panicked voice accompanied by gunshot prompted his first, impulsive question.

"It's not bad," Charlie answered evasively. "Listen to me! He'll let the others go if he can get a car." He paused, and Don heard the rumble of the kidnapper's voice. "Not his own car -- uh, my car. No... no GPS, no tracking devices."

"I'm not..." Don broke off when the phone was wrenched away quite loudly from his brother's hand. He heard a yelp of pain, his gut tightening with fear for Charlie's safety.

"That's our final offer, Eppes," the original voice came back on, assured that he held all the cards. "Or I shoot your brother first of all. You've got ten minutes to back off so we can walk out all calm like. Little Charlie here says his car is the blue one parked right behind the SWAT team."

Don glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, just past the behemoth of a black van bristling with antenna and a small satellite dish and two aisles over from Don's SUV sat Charlie's pride and joy, a 2007 Prius. Which did not come standard with a GPS system. Not even Onstar. He chomped fiercely on his gum, refraining from the satisfaction of popping a small bubble with his back teeth.

FBI policy was to avoid compromising the safety of the hostages as much as possible, yet staying tough with the criminal element. Get the hostages out at all costs and don't bargain with the kidnappers unless there was a way to track their vehicle. Even if he had one, there was no time to attach any sort of monitoring bug to the car, especially since the kidnappers could watch him through the blinds.

"Eppes, the clock starts ticking now. You got ten minutes before I call again. Otherwise, boom." He must have pressed his lips against the phone to make the chillingly real sounding explosion, and Don pulled his cell away from his ear, his heart pounding. "No more professor, no more pretty ladies in tights," the other man said. The call clicked off with finality.

"Hong, call the men off," Don said to the Commander. "They'll send the hostages out in ten minutes as long as they can take my brother's car."

"Don!" Megan objected.

"I can position a sniper anywhere in the area to get a good, clean shot," Hong said. "But calling them down isn't advisable."

Wiping his wet hair out of his eyes, Don scanned the surrounding area. The parking lot was about half full of cars but none of the Cal Sci buildings were convenient for a good shot. Too many trees between here and the nearest one, Thames Hall, where Charlie had his office. The only available site was the flat roof of the bookstore, which would put a sniper behind the people coming out of the yoga studio. Not a good angle at all, and the steady downpour would make a shot all that much harder. Still, it would have to do.

Grimly, he motioned for the Commander, walking resolutely across the slick blacktop. "We don't even have nine minutes now, get that damned hulk out of line with the studio before I drive it away myself," he barked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"They moved the SWAT team out!" Stew reported from his station at the blinds.

"Charlie, this is..." Amita shook her head, her hair like a black nimbus around her. She huddled into the sweater she'd pulled on, shivering. "Ludicrous!" she finished, gesturing toward the front door of the studio. "You can't!"

If he hadn't felt so miserable, Charlie might have kissed here right then, just to smooth out the worry lines on her forehead. "It fits the equation," he said quietly. He wasn't exactly sanguine about his own chances, but he had great faith in Don's ability to control the situation -- as much as it could be controlled. Just hearing Don's voice, knowing that his brother was close by, had given Charlie a tiny measure of confidence. That Don would rip him a new opening when this was all over was a given. And he clung to that future scenario, using it as a touchtone to steady his nerves.

"We need to get Sunshine up," Pritim said tentatively. "She isn't responding. I don't know what's wrong."

The girl had never moved once since the gunmen arrived. She was still curled in what could loosely be defined as a modified Child's pose, her blue eyes as empty as a summer sky. With Joe's corpse only inches away, she had every reason to be completely freaked.

"She's scared." Martin straightened his shoulders. His wrinkled face was drained of color and he stood with a careful economy of movement. "Possibly catatonia, or some sort of fugue state. Protecting the ego against attack."

"Let me," Marianna said suddenly, getting up so quickly that Number Two leveled his pistol at her belly.

"Marianna, you don't do anything you're not told to."

"You're here because of me." She swiped her wet cheeks and runny nose. Looking blankly at the mess on her hand, she scrubbed it against her yellow t-shirt. "He may want me back, but I don't have to stay." Marianna cringed when Vinnie raised his gun as if about to bring it down on her skull, and dropped to her knees, sobbing again, all defiance draining away.

"You do what you're told, baby. You're coming with us." He nodded with satisfaction at a job well done.

"Nooo," Marianna wailed. Pritim hugged the woman, glaring over her shoulder at the intruders.

"She goes out with the others," Charlie protested. He sucked in a terrified breath when Number Two turned his weapon on him. "W-we agreed," he added, just as it occurred to him that they had done nothing of the sort. He'd assumed that they would trade Marianna for him, but there'd been no guarantees. And what made him think that could he believe an armed assailant who would shoot up a yoga class in the first place?

"He musta added two and two and got five," Stew snorted with laughter, slapping his knee. "Not very good at arithmetic, huh?"

Charlie flared at those hated words, the exact ones hurled at him when he was six and had tried to go to elementary school like other children. Bullies had taunted him at every turn, ragging on him when he'd tuned out in basic addition lesson because he was light-years ahead of the other first graders, and ending up missing the simple question posed by the teacher.

Nobody insinuated he didn't know his way around numbers and got away with it, even back when he'd had to resort to letting big brother fight his battles for him.

No more. There was a point when he had to take a stand.

He already resented that three gunmen could so totally destroy the calm of the one place where he could momentarily filter out the constant barrage of numbers and sense something akin to quiet inside his always-on brain. But when they cast aspersions on his mathematic abilities, he felt it down to his soul.

"I'm a tenured professor of applied mathematics, with several other degrees, as well," he said proudly, getting to his feet. "I'd wager that you didn't pass algebra one on the first try?" It was what Colby would have called "a math put-down" but in Charlie's mind, it was a good one. He flicked a glance at Number Three who had come away from the window, his mocking laughter going hollow at the jeer.

Charlie held his hands wide, presenting a good target to Vinnie and pretending the seven inch difference between them -- both in distance and height -- wasn't a distinct disadvantage. He could barely dodge the bullet if the other man chose to fire. "What are you going to do?" Charlie asked, feeling amazingly cool under fire. Was this how Don got through his day, bluffing like crazy and ignoring the fear that coiled in his belly like a viper? It was exhilarating in a strange and liberating way. The adrenaline racing through his blood stream was a better high than the single time he'd tried marijuana back at Princeton.

"Marianna, get over here," Vinnie said coldly as if talking to a misbehaving dog. She responded, an abused pet used to being punished. "Now, Professor of applied Mathematics, you've got three minutes left to live unless your brother does exactly what I ask." He gestured with his pistol, motioning for Charlie to move away from the little knot of yoga students. "I've got a mind to do a nice public assassination -- with you sitting right in the front window where everyone can see me blow your head clear off."

The description was far too vivid. Charlie swallowed thickly, nauseated. "Sunshine, Pritim, Amita and Professor Papadopoulos go out the door first," he said, forcing himself into that oh-so-wished-for tranquility. Pritim's mantras hadn't ever worked, neither had acknowledging his drifting thoughts and letting them float past. Instead, he steadied himself with Pi. Three, a decimal point, one four and then a long parade of numerals marching as far as the eye could see; resolute, unchanging and dependable. Almost like his brother Don.

Pritim was chanting behind him, a sing-song cadence of consonants with not quite enough vowels -- a Hindu prayer to protect them against evil. He could hear Amita trying to follow along, not quite able to pronounce all the unfamiliar words, but hoping for some kind of salvation.

"I said move!" Number Two shouted, and flipped open Charlie's cell phone to make the call.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Don!" David dashed from the SWAT van's new location, half a block down, weaving his way through the crowd of police. "Got some more information on the hostages."

"Good, anything we can use?" Don grabbed the paper David held out, unfurling the umbrella Megan had found from who knows where so that he could read.

"The teacher is Pritim Ramanujan, Amita's cousin, just like you said," David panted. "Two students in the later class were waiting out front when the LAPD first pulled up. They said she teaches every morning from eight to nine am. They also said that Marianna Carson and Sunshine Beckwith attend almost every morning."

"I already know their names." Don glanced around the area, mentally checking off the adjustments made to LAPD's positions. He knew there was a man on the roof of the bookstore with a rifle, although he couldn't see the sniper. There were also gunmen and LAPD officers stationed all around the perimeter, keeping a low profile.

"So I pulled all their student ID's," David continued, pointing to the pictures he'd printed out. "And pulled up the current roster for Ramanujan's class. She rarely has more than five to ten students at a time. Charlie and Amita are listed, so is Larry, and a half dozen other names."

"So we still don't know who that last hostage is?" Was Larry involved in this, too?

"No confirmation. I've been talking to campus administration, but there are far too many students and professors at Cal Sci to quickly tell if one or two are missing."

"Guys, coffee?" Megan came under the umbrella, holding out steaming cups from the campus coffee bar.

Don passed her the names and photos of the students in exchange for the cup, grateful for the warmth. He was cold and wet, and really, really hated seeing his brother's photo included in a group of endangered hostages. Charlie looked astonishingly young in the picture, smiling engagingly at the camera, his unruly curls falling over his forehead. The picture was old, maybe as much as five to ten years, judging from the shirt and tie he wore, so he had been very young. Possibly all of twenty one.

"That's..." Megan stabbed her finger at Marianna Carson's ID, practically ripping the damp paper. "That's not her last name, at least not the last time I saw this woman."

"You know her?" Don and David asked simultaneously.

"Marianna, Marianna..." Megan frowned, thinking.

Don scrutinized the picture again. She did look vaguely familiar. Maybe shorten the abundant black hair, remove the dark-rimmed glasses?

"Organized crime," Megan said definitively.

"I'm not following. You mean she's a player?" David asked, stamping his feet, causing splashes that soaked Don's already wet pants.

"No, her husband is," Don said, hazy memories suddenly coming into sharp relief. "Chester Lendowsky."

"That's her!" Megan agreed. "She was little miss mouse, afraid of her own shadow. Then he was hauled in for Rico violations and held for about six months in a Federal pen."

"But his lawyer had the sentence reduced and most of the charges were dropped," Don added. "Word was that his people got to the witnesses. At least one turned up dead, and another is still in a coma, as far as I know."

"Son of a bitch," David said. "And this Marianna disappeared?"

"Looks like she went back to school." Megan raised her eyebrows. "She hasn't been seen since Lendowsky got out of prison."

"Chet doesn't leave loose ends lying around. He came back to get her." Don tossed the coffee into the rushing creek the rain had created in the gutter. The last thing he needed was more acid in his belly. Marianna Lendowsky had led the mob straight into her yoga class, embroiling Charlie in a chain of events that had absolutely no chance of a positive resolution. Charlie was already hurt, as well as this mysterious Joe. The most Don could hope for was that the rest of the innocent victims remained alive. "Except, he'd never do the dirty work himself. He sent three goons to grab her."

He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes had passed since he'd last spoken with the leader of the kidnappers. The street had been cleared of all police and emergency vehicles for fifty feet in both directions, leaving a clear view of the campus parking lot and Charlie's Prius. The police had cordoned off the parking lot shortly after they'd arrived, turning away arriving students. Charlie's little blue car sat alone and forlorn surrounded by dozens of vacant parking spaces. "Did you get anything on the three gunmen?" he growled.

"I called the rental agency on that car." Megan pointed to the late model silver Ford parked in the gap between the yoga studio and the bookstore. "It was rented only about thirty minutes before the men arrived here. According to one of Hong's men, the onboard navigational unit is programmed for the address of the yoga studio. The clerk said that a large man, over six feet, came in alone and signed it out. The name on the credit card and driver's license was Alexander Hamilton."

"The early statesman?" David interjected.

"Some people just don't know their American history," she deadpanned in return. "Colby's back at the office, hunting down any background on this guy. Thing is, remember what we heard on Charlie's cell? "You killed Joe." So, we may have a Joe, and an Alexander, or none of the above."

"And which of them killed him?" David asked.

"Have Colby find out all the known associates of Chet Lendowsky," Don directed.

Megan nodded, punching a number on her speed dial to connect her with their fourth team member.

"Don!" David said urgently, his attention focused on the large front window of the yoga studio.

The shades went up, revealing Charlie Eppes bracketed by two masked gunmen. One had his right arm curved around the mathematician so that the pistol was directly against Charlie's head. From Don's perspective, the gunman nearly had the barrel shoved right into Charlie's ear. The weapon was most definitely the Sig Sauer he'd heard. The other man covered a group of people. Even through the rain streaked glass, Don could pick out Marianna Lendowsky Carson. She cowered, her long hair covering her face. Three other hostages, one of whom was Amita, were clustered around a fourth blond girl who appeared barely able to stand upright. Another injured victim?

As his phone buzzed, Don turned his attention back to his brother. Charlie looked terrible with blood streaked down his face and matting his hair, yet there was a pride in his stance as if he wasn't about to go down without a fight. As foolish as that was, his brother's courage gave him a measure of satisfaction. Don flipped open his cell. "Eppes," he barked, walking out into the street until he was directly opposite the window.

"Big Brother!" The masked man cradling Charlie against his massive chest also held a cell to his left ear. He had a harsh, raspy breathing that came across like thunder on the phone. "You got the job done. Good for you."

"Yeah, so let the hostages go," Don said, staring straight at his brother.

Stay strong, Chuck.

"We need five minutes to get out of the area, once we're in the car," the gunman told him, pressing the Sig even harder against Charlie's ear.

His belly twisting into a knot, Don could easily see his brother wince. Charlie was almost bent sideways from the strain of the barrel against his skull. "Agreed," Don said sullenly.

The front door of the studio opened so slowly that Don could hear the squeal of rusty hinges over the steady drone of the rain. Pritim and Amita came out first, looking almost like identical twins with their similar hair and build, supporting the limp blond woman between them. An elderly man followed them, his hands held high.

Don let the women walk out far enough so that the gunmen would see them before he met Amita in the middle of the street. "Is she hurt?" he whispered, holding his phone against his leg to prevent his opponent from hearing them.

"Sunshine fainted," Pritim said, her arm tightly around the barely conscious woman.

"Don!" Amita's voice was panicky, but she kept walking as if she couldn't get far enough away from the source of her fears. "Do something!"

He nodded tightly at her, not willing to give anything away. Handing the women off into the care of paramedics waiting down at the end of the road, Don kept his eyes on Charlie and the rest of the people still inside the building. The splatter of rain on his face distracted him, splintering his focus when he needed to be completely in charge of every facet of the operation.

David was already intercepting the old man, leading him to a tarpaulin draped over the end of the paramedic's van. Marianna never emerged.

"They're keeping her," Megan said so quietly that Don only really heard her because he was thinking the same thing.

His jaw ached because he was chewing gum so violently, and he took a slow, deep breath. Whatever happened in the next few moments could haunt him for the rest of his life. He was not about to let Charlie get shot in the head. Purposefully keeping his eyes from straying up toward the roof of the bookstore, Don wished he could be two places at one time. Up there holding the sniper-scoped rifle and right where he was, keeping an eye on Charlie. He lifted the tiny cell phone back to his ear, "Where's Marianna Lendowsky?"

"So you guessed who was the lady behind door number one?" the gunman chuckled, propelling Charlie in front of him. "She's coming along for the ride, just like your little brother. Makes it more cozy like." The phone connection clicked off.

The few seconds that they disappeared from view between the plate glass window and the front door of the studio were some of the longest Don had ever waited through. Einstein's relativity theory. He didn't have to be a genius to know that one. Speed of light, time, whatever else -- all relative on the one who was standing still doing the waiting.

Marianna and a gunman who was only slightly taller stepped out onto the wet sidewalk. The man held his gun to her waist, with one hand on her arm. She wasn't putting up an ounce of resistance, meekly walking beside him as if her life had ended and she was simply waiting for the bullet to finish the job.

The morning was dark, overcast and dour, lending a grim, cinematic atmosphere to the proceedings as if they'd stepped into a film noir movie set. All bright lights from the police cars had been extinguished, the yellowish street lights providing the only brightness as Marianna and her shadow started across the street to the parking lot.

Next out, Charlie was defiant, standing in front of the second gunman's chest with his chin held high. Don recognized that look. It was Charlie's stubborn steak, which had gotten him in trouble more than once.

The difference in their heights meant that Charlie's head came up just above his captor's shoulder, with his entire body pressed into the gunman's bulk. They moved in tandem, Charlie walking out of the door just as the kidnapper did, the gun barrel so tight against Charlie's ear that Don could see the skin blanched out from the pressure.

He caught his brother's eye and nodded minutely. I'm with you, Buddy.

Don stepped back, allowing them to pass within ten feet of him, the urge to rush the gunmen and pull Charlie to safety so strong he had to bite down on his cheek to keep from moving. He never took his eyes off the two of them, projecting peace, all the while readying himself for action. Megan stood resolutely beside him, her arms loose and away from her body. She was ready too, even though both had removed their guns and holsters earlier in a good faith gesture.

Don wouldn't have seen the tiny movement if he wasn't watching for it. Charlie's eyes slid sideways, away from the gun just as he took a step up onto the curb fronting the parking lot. As if he'd known the plan from the very beginning, Charlie stumbled and went down, dragging his captor off balance.

Two gunshots ran out in unison, blood spurting out in a scarlet arc. Don dove for the stash of guns he'd secreted just under a bush to his left, throwing one to Megan. He came up into official firing position, semi-automatic braced in his right hand, leveled straight at the remaining suspect.

Charlie had all but disappeared under his captor's body, blood pooling below the tangle of limbs to join the stream rushing into the gutter. The gunman holding Marianna was using his former partner as a shield to return fire, his finger clamped down on the trigger. He laid a volley in the street, scattering a phalanx of SWAT members.

"Give it up, asshole!" Don shouted, darting forward until he was only inches from his target. What the hell had happened to Charlie? Only his dirty bare feet were visible. "Put the gun down, now!"

In the space of seconds, half a dozen law enforcement types had ringed around the last gunmen, all with their weapons trained directly on him.

"You haven't got a prayer," Megan growled, advancing on him with deadly intent.

"Don't shoot!" Marianna whimpered. "Stew, listen to them!"

"Hear that, Stew? She's giving you good advice," Megan said, crouching down beside the disheveled woman. "Come here, sweetie."

"I'm telling you one more time!" Don roared, so close to blowing the creep's head off he couldn't think straight. Was Charlie dead? Shot down by their own side or Lendowsky's henchman? Had the SWAT sniper's bullet gone right through the bigger man and hit Charlie, too? "Give it up!"

Stew dropped the gun abruptly and four cops forced him face down on the wet sidewalk, handcuffing his hands behind him with all speed.

"Charlie!" Don heaved the body of the other gunman off his brother, his heart slamming against his ribs. "Talk to me!"

"Don," Charlie moaned. "Not so loud."

"Damn it!" Don swung Charlie up as if he were a rag doll and gathered his younger brother into his arms, heedless of the Eppes-we're-all-men-here, we-don't-hug policy. "Were you hit? Where?" He squeezed him tightly, eliciting a yelp of pain from Charlie, and patted down his brother's chest and back, feeling for bullet wounds. "You're covered in blood, where were you hit?"

"Stop!" Charlie cried. "I'm okay, well mostly okay, I didn't..." He looked down at his red soaked t-shirt, blanching. "That's a lot of blood."

"Must be all his." Don sat back on his heels, the close call one he never, ever wanted to repeat again even if it meant keeping Charlie inside the Eppes house, or in his Cal Sci office, for the rest of the math geek's unnatural life. "Fuck, what the hell did you think you were doing, agreeing to be a hostage? You could have gotten yourself killed! These guys have mob connections, or did you factor that into your insane little equation?"

"Don, I wasn't thinking..."

"First time in your whole life you didn't think and look what happens!" Don raged, both hands clamped on Charlie's arms, keeping him upright. Which turned out to be a good thing when Charlie slumped, his eyes rolling back into his head. "Hey!" Don eased Charlie to the wet ground, sure that he'd killed him. "Charlie! Get a paramedic over here!"

"He's breathing." Megan brushed sopping curls off Charlie's forehead to reveal the gory wound just above his left ear. "Bullet must have grazed him."

"Shit." Don slid his fingers into the curve of his brother's throat to feel the reassuring throb of the artery there. Except his hand was shaking so much he couldn't tell whether it was Charlie's pulse or his own post adrenaline reaction. "Shit."

Charlie heard the paramedics talking, even if he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, his senses coming back in a disjointed fashion instead of all at once. Fascinating. He'd have to factor that into his cognitive emergence theory work. He'd read about that phenomenon but never had the pleasure, or should that be displeasure, of experiencing it for himself. Was hearing always first, or did some people regain consciousness starting with smell, for instance?

A needle pricked the inside of his right elbow, and a slight burning sensation up the vein proved that someone had started an IV. He had hearing and touch online, check; adding data to his research. Numbers started crowd onto the chalkboard in his mind's eye, buddying up in little groups set off with brackets so that if the exponent of y was...

His eyelid was abruptly pried open and a light with twice the intensity of the sun bored a hole right into his brain, magnifying the pain that had mostly abated in the last half hour.

"Stop it!" Charlie rasped, batting away the offending torture. At least his eyesight and voice were back in business. He should probably open his eyes on his own, just to show that he could.

"Hey, buddy," Don said softly.

"His temp is a little on the low side probably because he is wet and shocky, and his blood pressure isn't great, but respiration and heart rate are within normal limits," the paramedic said with a certain dry humor. "And he reacts just fine. He nearly smacked me in the nose."

"Your light should be registered as cruel and inhuman," Charlie complained. Remembering the way the yoga studio had undulated when he'd opened his eyes after being thrown against the wall, he didn't relish having to witness a similar pseudo-earthquake. He peered out through his eyelashes, but that was plain annoying since everything was out of focus and blurry. Or course, that could be his eyesight. Which demanded a fact-based experiment to form a basis for comparison.

Just opening the right eye brought on a wave of nausea so strong he turned his head, expecting to puke. When nothing happened, Charlie persisted by raising his left eyelid, breathing through the worst of the queasiness. That was when he realized that he was hooked up to oxygen and lying on a gurney.

"Charlie, stay still. Your head might start bleeding again." Amita molded her fingers around his. Her fingers felt hot, and he shivered, suddenly aware of how very cold he was.

"Is everybody all right?" He risked another stab of pain right to the mid-brain, and looked up at his brother and Amita. They looked fantastic, if very, very wet.

"Pritim is staying with Sunshine..." Amita began.

Charlie strained to listen but the sound of the rain drumming on the tarp above them made it hard to make out what Amita was saying. Maybe his senses were coming and going, fading in and out like faulty wiring during a storm? Hitting his head and getting shot would probably cause all sorts of weird interference.

"...professor's ready to get back to class," Amita continued, obviously unaware that Charlie hadn't caught three words in ten.

"I think you may get the hero button this week, bro." Don smirked fondly at him. Maybe because his voice was deeper, but Charlie had less trouble hearing Don past the discordant clanging in his head. The headache only seemed to get worse by the second.

"You think we still have that?" Charlie asked in amazement. He hadn't thought of the little red button with HERO written in glittery gold paint in years. His mother had made it when Don was very small to encourage him after he'd had stitches at the age of four, or so the story went. When Charlie got old enough to understand the significance of proudly sporting the red button on his shirt, he'd begged for his chance to be a hero, too. From then on, it had passed back and forth between the brothers until Don declared himself too old for such a baby thing.

"If we don't, Dad will probably make another one," Don said.

"Oh, God, do we have to even tell him about this?" Charlie gingerly rubbed his forehead, encountering a large gauze bandage on his left temple. When had the paramedics had time to put that on? How long was he out?

"It's all over the news. If I hadn't called him just now, he would have found out sooner or later, anyway." Don looked at someone past Charlie's field of vision and nodded. "You're going for a ride, now. I'll see you in a few. Dad will meet us there."

"But I have classes!" Charlie protested, He tried to sit up and found himself held down by Amita on one side, Don on the other and a wide strap across his chest. "I can't go to the hospital right now."

"Just think of it as all part of the..." Don pointed a finger at his brother, daring him to protest. "Gestalt. FBI requires documentation, Chuck. Yards and yards of paperwork, all I's crossed and T's dotted. The doctor has to check you out before I can get your statement."

"This'll take forever," Charlie sighed, hearing the whininess in his own voice. His head ached abominably and it definitely hurt to breathe. "Can somebody at least bring my laptop to the hospital? I have some theories on my cognitive emergence theory that I need to get down before I forget them."

"Charlie." Amita pressed a kiss on his forehead just beside the bandage and stood back to let the paramedics trundle the gurney into a waiting ambulance. "When it comes to numbers, you never forget anything."

The thing is, he wished he could. He really wished he could forget the sight of Vinnie holding a gun barrel only inches from his brain, with his finger over the trigger. Even converted into probabilities, the strongest of which had him dead on the hardwood floor of the yoga studio and the most unlikely had him surviving to testify against the Stew Jacobi in a court of law, he's never get that one image out of his brain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The news footage played on every local station all day long, showing the exact same thing -- a burly guy holding a gun pressed to a smaller man's head as they walked across the street. Then a series of loud retorts, a spurt of blood which was shockingly red even with the poor reception of the hospital room TV, and the smaller man disappeared under the bulk of the larger one. Afterwards, the anchorperson of whichever network that Don chose would look gravely at the camera and deliver half-facts without much substance, since the entire story hadn't yet been released to the media. And probably wouldn't be for some time. If ever.

In fact, not one of the news media had released any pictures of the other hostage released just seconds before Charlie. And they never would, because she was even now being processed into witness protection. Marianna Lendowsky would cease to exist by the following morning, replaced by a woman living alone in some other state, her sole link to the case a series of classified testimonies to be used only during the trial for her ex-husband and his former associates.

One call from the government had removed the last recorded moments of Marianna's former life from ever showing up anywhere.

"Donnie," Alan said softly, so close behind him that Don broke out in a sudden sweat.

"Dad, don't walk up behind me like that!" Don complained, taking the cup of coffee his father had brought. The aftermath was always the worst. He'd reexamine the events, ruminating over every moment, trying to change the outcome and calculate different results. A little like what Charlie did, without a chalkboard and far fewer numbers and indecipherable symbols. Don's rewrites always ended even more bloody than the actual incident. Exactly why he should refrain from such morbid revisions.

Charlie had survived. The bullet hadn't even gone under the skin. Hadn't damaged that remarkable intellect one iota. Actually, the concussion he'd suffered; a two-fer whammy from the impact of the bullet and apparently hitting a wall at some point during the siege, had proved far worse. X-rays had detected a small bleed in the back of his skull, but so far surgery wasn't considered warranted. The neurologist was confident that Charlie would make a full recovery.

"Donnie, you did the best you could." Alan laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Charlie..."

"Did you find the hero button?" Don asked, forestalling any well-meaning platitudes that would only make him feel worse than he already did.

"In the garage, where else?" Alan smiled, looking over at Charlie sleeping in the hospital bed. "In a box your mother had marked 'accomplishments'. Among other things, I also found a blue ribbon you won in the second grade for that spelling bee and a copy of Charlie's first published work." He gently placed the faded red and gold button on the blankets over Charlie's heart.

"The Eppes Convergence." Don sipped his coffee, remembering the day the journal had come in the mail by overnight express. Charlie was 14 -- one of the youngest published mathematicians in the world. A true protegee. It was the last time Margaret had brought out the button. Even Charlie had considered himself too old for such fuss by then.

There had been considerable fuss, however. Charlie was lauded at a dinner in his honor at Cal Sci, on the exact same day as Don's college baseball play-offs. The one time he'd hit a home run, without a single family member to watch him.

Not for the first time, he'd wished he were Charlie -- just for a night. Not the first time he'd compared himself to his younger brother and found himself lacking, then resented that he felt that way. Ah, guilt.

"What're you all doing still standing around here?" Charlie muttered, his voice still thick with sleep. He grimaced in pain, shielding his eyes against the glare of the TV.

Apparently convinced that there must be someone in the vicinity of the airwaves who hadn't viewed the infamous clip of Vinnie Maile getting blown away by a single shot from a SWAT sniper's bullet, Channel Six was replaying it for the umpteenth time. Seeing Charlie's distaste at the unpleasant images, Don hastily turned off the TV.

"The whole time I was thinking 'what would Don do?'" Charlie said, looking up at the TV even though the screen was blank.

"What?" Don hooked his fingers through his belt loops, watching his brother. Charlie looked wan, his dark brown hair and five o'clock scruff a sharp contrast to his pale face, but he was remarkably composed for someone who had just spent a hellish morning with armed attackers.

Alan sat down by the bed and poured Charlie a glass of water, adding a bendy straw for him as if he were 8 years old again.

"Don, you make it look so easy. You're always in control, cool under fire..." Charlie choked, then quickly sucked on his straw as if drinking had caused the momentary lapse. "I was scared every minute, I couldn't even logically predict the probabilities of... Statistically, I should have been killed in there, and very possibly, every one of the o-others."

"Aw, Charlie, you did the best you could," Don said, unconsciously echoing his father's words.

"Touche," Alan said dryly, pulling Charlie into the circle of his arms.

"Every one of those hostages made it out safely because of you. No matter how -- let's say, annoyed, maybe even scared, I was that you put yourself at risk."

"You were scared?" Charlie sounded surprised, almost relieved, to hear that.

"Charlie, every single time I'm in a dangerous situation, I'm always scared," Don said honestly. "You just have to--" he shrugged, unsure how to explain it. Sometimes he and Charlie were so different he wasn't sure how they came to be out of the same two parents. Every emotion Charlie ever felt showed on his face, stark and pure. Don hid behind a mask of control, keeping himself private. Yet, ultimately, they were both stubborn, intelligent leaders that other people looked to in times of crisis. That sometimes surprised him about himself, and he was sad to admit, it very much surprised him about Charlie. Talk about hidden strengths. "Keep your head and use the fear as a motivator, to keep you moving forward."

Charlie stared at him with wide brown eyes, very obviously unconvinced, clutching the drinking cup just a shade too tightly until Alan took it from him.

"Mark Twain once said, 'Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear,'" Alan spoke up, standing abruptly. Don could see the glint of tears in his father's eyes, even if Alan wasn't about to acknowledge them. "Baby boy, I think you had courage in spades."

His mouth curling up into an embarrassed smile, Charlie pressed one hand against his forehead, the light of scientific wonder animating him. "I wonder it there's a way to quantify that? Is adrenaline the key? Harnessing the sympathetic nervous system reactions that bring on more acute vision, heightened awareness..."

"Amita never came back with your laptop," Don interrupted before Charlie started writing on the nearest flat surface. "And we're banning all dry markers, white boards, pens of all kind until you're out of here. Get some rest!"

"Dad!" Charlie wailed. "I just need to jot down a couple ideas."

"Doctor's orders, your brother is right." Alan tucked the blankets more neatly around his youngest son.

"Oh, for once, huh?" Don teased. "I heard that hesitation there, Dad."

"I'm certain you've been right more than once," Alan retorted with the lift of one gray eyebrow. "Charlie, just use your mental eraser and rub them out for now."

"Honestly, I don't think I can do that, although this headache might accomplish the same thing without a mental eraser," Charlie grouched. He extended his fingers, almost reaching for something that was slightly to far away. "They had no right--"

"The guys who broke in?" Don specified. He could see the whole panoply of emotions flicker across his brother's face: uncertainty, fear, resolve and despair as if Charlie were experiencing the entire thing over again.

He nodded, lost in thought, top lip down over his bottom lip. "They destroyed tranquility," Charlie said simply. "I liked taking yoga. I was just beginning to find that inner peace Pritim talks about just before..." He sighed, rubbing his forehead again. "How is she doing?"

"Fine woman, rattled but poised. I invited Amita and Pritim over for dinner next week, when things have slowed down," Alan said. "She said she could make us some Indian food, since Amita is always promising and never seems to have the time."

"Apparently she's the one who embraced all the ethnic culture." Charlie yawned. "Amita got the science genes. And Martin?"

"He went back to Cal Sci this afternoon, determined to teach his post graduate class." Don scrubbed his gritty eyes. Charlie's yawn was instantly infectious, opening the door to Don's exhaustion. When was the last time he'd slept? Maybe a day and a half ago? Since long before the nearly forgotten raid on McKenzie's place -- which had been just after midnight, a full 18 hours ago. "Apparently he had some new insight in the psychology of hostages."

"Yeah," Charlie agreed soberly. "Did Sunshine wake up?"

"Doctors don't know what to make of her." Don dropped into a chair, exhausted. "The theory is that she must have had some past trauma associated with gunfire and the moment the first guy pulled the trigger, she broke."

"Damn." Charlie traced a few lines on the bedspread with his finger, and Don almost regretted telling Amita not to bring the computer over. By morning Charlie would find some way to get his thoughts on an unmarked surface. It was inevitable. The walls of his bedroom were always covered in scrawled equations when he was a child. "But maybe she's luckier, in a way," Charlie went on, the catch in his husky voice the only signal of how shaken he still was. "She -- she can blank it all out. Like Pritim said, acknowledge your random thoughts and let them drift past. Except I can't do that."

"Your mother used to hum, all the time," Alan told him. "To keep herself focused on the moment. I suspect that we all have different ways to free ourselves -- not just block out what scares us, but to give the mind a chance to slow down, be calm."

"That's true." Charlie spread his hands wide, encompassing a wide expanse of space. "I've just about come to the same conclusion. At one point, this morning, I started to calculate pi. It was strangely soothing, and restful."

"Only for you, buddy, only for you." Don roused himself enough to keep in the conversation. The chair he was slouched in wasn't particularly comfortable but just then, he didn't care in the least. As long as he wasn't standing up anymore.

"Right," Charlie agreed. "Something different for each of us. Don, close your eyes." He waited expectantly until Don complied. "Imagine swinging the bat and hitting the ball just perfectly. Now watch it arch up into the sky until there's nothing, just sky and ball..."

Don could see it so vividly. A white ball in a pale blue sky, the colors blending and graying until there was a void, nothing impinging on his mind's eye. No McKenzie case, no wrap-up and debriefing on the shooting of Vinnie Maile. No worry about Charlie, his father, his team, whether to call Liz again; everything faded out into a smooth, sweet peace.

"You put your brother to sleep," Alan remarked with the quirk of a smile when Don snored. "You did good, Charlie. You made me proud. You made him proud. Now, can you get some rest yourself?"

"I'll try." Charlie closed his eyes, certain that he'd see bloody bodies sprawled limply on the polished wood floor of the yoga studio with the echo of gunfire haunting his dreams, and opened them immediately to make sure that he was still in the hospital with his family nearby. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere, little boy." Alan confiscated one of the three pillows at the head of Charlie's bed, tucking it behind him to make the plastic visitor's chair more comfortable. "I've got a chair with my name on it and your brother is already dreaming of playing in the majors, from the look of things."

"You don't have to... stay," Charlie said, swallowing tightly. He was shaking, the tremors coming without warning, jarring his aching muscles.

"Relax, Charlie," Alan soothed, turning off the bedside light. There was still enough light to see coming from the instrument panel over the bed, but the shadows softened the contours of the room. "Take a deep breath, and listen to your heart beat."

"You sound like you know what you're doing," Charlie said, inhaling until his bruised ribs twinged a warning. He exhaled slowly, trying to release all the terrors of the morning.

"I did spend a fair amount of time in the '60s," Alan deadpanned. "It wasn't all free-love and protesting the war. Yoga was in, man," he drawled the last like a stoner blissed out on weed, and breathed in deeply, almost in time with one of Don's noisier snores. "Just relax, and free your thoughts."

Charlie surrendered, his father's mellow voice intertwining with memories of Pritim's, when there was nothing more than the rain on the roof, the soft twang of a sitar, and the brush of Amita's fingers as she spread her arms out on the floor.

The key was discovering his own internal focus. Banning numbers would never work. They were part of his make-up, his DNA.

Feeling his breath moving past his parted lips, Charlie sketched a large number three on the landscape of his dreams, adding a decimal point and then a one and a four. Another one and a five crowded in next, nine two six and five trailing afterwards. Watching as the numerals drifted past, Charlie was free, flying along a path that went on and on, comforting in its regularity, lovely in its precise nature.

Charlie slept.

Fin


End file.
